Apple's iPhone 5 gets final approval for China release

SHANGHAI

SHANGHAI Nov 30 Apple Inc's latest
iPhone has received final clearance from Chinese regulators,
paving the way for a December debut in a highly competitive
market where the lack of a new model had severely eroded its
share of product sales.

China is Apple's second-largest market and its Chinese fans
are eagerly awaiting the latest model of its smartphone, the
iPhone 5, which was released in the United States in September.

Apple has said that the iPhone 5 will be released in China
in December, but the long wait caused Apple's smartphone market
share to halve to 10 percent in the second quarter as users
switch brands or hold out for the latest model, data from
industry research firm IDC showed in August.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority, under China's Ministry of
Industry and Information Technology, showed two iPhone 5 models
on its website that received approval on Thursday. The two are
the A1429, a WCDMA model that runs on China Unicom's
network, and the A1442, a CDMA model that runs on China Telecom
Corp's network.

The chairman of China Unicom, the country's second-largest
mobile carrier, said early this month that it expected to start
selling the iPhone 5 this year as it aims for a major boost in
3G users to 100 million by the year-end, up from 67 million in
the first nine months.

Many users on Sina Corp's Weibo, China's most
popular microblogging platform, cheered the imminent arrival of
the latest iPhone. "I'm all ready! The iPhone 5 is coming!" said
one.